Well -- really -- my employer got me an iPhone ...
All in all I like it ...
Pros
Intuitive and clean interface Does most things I want it to do. It makes calls. It plays mp3s. I can check Gmail on it. I can read Google Reader on it. Seems stable (at least with a weeks "compliant" use -- see unlocking below)
Cons
If you are dialing up a number that is going to require you to enter a number afterwards (like an extension) you have to click the numberpad button AFTER dialing to get back there ... Doesn't have a Flash plugin.
It won't allow you to install third party apps without "unlocking" it. This doesn't bother me that much. I am not planning on using a device that size in place of my laptop. It also has a built-in camera which I would be tempted to slam except that I used it to take 130+ pictures of a family visit to Afton Villa in St. Francisville. We forgot our regular digital camera. The photos are not great but they captured some moments that would have been lost otherwise.
I have managed to work around some of the clunky cons for my purposes (streaming audio, instant messaging) ... Meebo.com handles the instant messaging flawlessly. Orb.com allows me to stream content from a Windows machine which allows me to listen to my Yahoo Music content remotely. Its KIND of slow so I am not thrilled with the solution but one can say it DOES work. It sometimes misses small blocks of the songs. I may try the Orb 1.0 interface and see if that resolves the issue. I have heard people have had problems with 2.0. -- I know using a Windows middleman is not a true Mac die hard solution BUT I am not a Mac die hard. I am a realist that needs to use the iPhone.
Jott + Google Calendar + any phone - I am using this as my primary calendar because its real time. I do not have to sync my phone to keep it up to date. I make a phone call to Jott
Jott: "Who do you want to Jott?" Me: "Google Calendar" Jott: "Google Calendar. Is that correct?" Me: "Yes" Jott: (beep) Me: "Call St. Francisville Chamber of Commerce at 9:30 am Wednesday"
Within three minutes it is on my schedule and usually spelled right (the example above is real). No sync required. In fact, I have removed all appointments on the Calendar application on the phone itself. I simply don't like it. Google Calendar has every option I need. I can sync with Outlook now using Google Calendar Sync.
My brother Joe came to visit this weekend which was a good reason for my family to get together. It was good to see him. It was also good to see the rest of my family including my nephews and neice. I found out one of my nephews wife is expecting as well. News is exciting in our family!
As an aside, have you ever wondered why we have a gender neutral reference to brothers and sisters (siblings) but not for nieces and nephews? ... neichews? ... And what about a gender specific designator for cousin? Gotta love English.
My brother and his girlfriend also came by today and gave all four of my children shirts from Alaska. I think my kids would freak out in a place that cold! I made sure to introduce my brother to my latest time wasting diversion, Slacker.com. I even got him to help me put together a station of things he likes.
We will homeschool next year
In our family news I want to note that we have DECIDED to homeschool next school year. We have enrolled Benjamin with St. Thomas Aquinas Academy because we like the classical curriculum and we really want to ensure we are doing justice to our child by educating him at home. Thus I personally like someone external to us being in on the whole process (besides the local homeschooling group). For those concerned about our decision to homeschool I have taken great care to enumerate our reasons and the known negatives of homeschooling. We are not making this decision rashly.
For my family members reading this on Facebook ... Tell your parents to get on Facebook or they risk aging faster. Also Keep in touch will ya!
We had a few milestones in the past few weeks. Our youngest made his first birthday. Today I have updated it with pictures from our middle sons first soccer game. He is on the same team as his older brother.
If you are a friend of mine on Facebook (or if you are reading this on Facebook) you can see pictures of all of this.
We are also buying a new washer. I have a LONG post on that front which I will post in the next day or two.
Its actually painful that this was a good game. When your team loses and it was a blowout, its easier to deal with. Long battles that are settled in the final moments are painful because it could have gone either way ...
Fans are allowed a certain short time frame to mourn a loss. I don't know how long that is. I am not seething with rage but I am sort of down I admit. I wish I could say that I enjoyed the game that so many people are saying was the best one they had seen. If it had been any team other than New England or New Orleans, I could have enjoyed it from that perspective. It would have been better only for Giants fans ...
That said, I STILL enjoyed the excitement Peyton Manning showed during the game. Eli sure picked the right time to have a coming out party. That play where he escaped the sack and hit the first down (amazing catch as well) is a career defining play. I know its one I won't forget. It put a dagger through my heart because I deep down knew they had that extra intangible that makes champions.
I'll make this analysis easy ... fortunately the local news did all of the work for me.
The Super Bowl is set, and the matchup features plenty of Bayou State talent. The New York Giants and the New England Patriots boast nine players with Louisiana ties in the big game ...(source)
What the local news did not do is perform the hard hitting analysis that will reveal why you should be rooting for New England on Sunday. That is what I am for. First off the MSM neglected to let you in on a little secret. New England owns the sheer number count 5 to 4 over the Giants in this Super Bowl. Below is your list showing even more why everyone in Louisiana (especially those who love LSU) should be rooting for the New England Patriots ...
The kids attended their first ever Mardi Gras parade in Denham Springs. It was a great family friendly atmosphere and I plan to go yearly from now on. Honestly, it was my first parade since middle school (not counting the Catholic school parade last year) ... That would make something like 20+ years for those counting. The only problem was that loud sirens and the ears of young children do not mix well.
My house is currently covered in beads ... its a very colorful and festive place. We will enjoy the moment.
My kids are already asking when the next parade is .... This will be fun!
This sort of happened to my LCD yesterday except it wasn't a Wii. It was a wooden sword. It was painful but do laugh anyway. Part of me thinks it was a blessing from God. I have ranted on overuse of TV in the past. Enjoy ...
Argh!!! The Saints lost ... that makes the NFC totally irrelevant to me now. I guess that puts me full time rooting for the Patriots in the post season. Yes I am a Patriots fan. Have been since the 1985 season and even moreso the short few games of Tommy Hodson at the helm in the early 90's.
I am somewhat of an anomaly around here in the land of LSU. I MUCH prefer pro football to college ball. Don't get me wrong, I am going to root for the local team. My wife graduated from there. My family has long ties to the university. I feel somewhat compelled to care because of my upbringing but in reality I don't really care that much. I like Les Miles if that's worth anything. I know that I will watch the national title game. Still, it won't be the same for me ... not like it was when I was a kid. Not like it was when Adam Vinatieri sailed that kick through the uprights for the first Super Bowl win for the New England Patriots in SB XXXVI.
The NFL doesn't suffer from the same dishonesty that NCAA ball, especially the Bowl Division, suffers from. Every year you have grades scandals, boosters caught dropping six figure bundles in the hands of high school coaches and recruits. Of course that never seems to happen at my friends favorite schools, or if it does then it was a teacher with an axe to grind or some other excuse. Everyone knows it goes on and nobody really cares to do much about it. We are talking institutions of higher learning. That is what they are supposed to be right? Now are there problems with the NFL? Certainly, but not to the point that it affects the game. In the highest level of NCAA football 90% of the teams have no legitimate shot at a national title before the season starts and well over 50% don't even have a mathematical shot at a national title each season. You can complain that Hawaii didn't belong on the field with Georgia but the fact is they cannot belong because every recruit knows Hawaii will never play for a national championship. Kind of hurts recruiting you know ... and the system is such that Hawaii CANNOT improve short of being elected to the club.
In the NFL every team has a shot. This isn't just in theory. This is reality. The rags to riches stories in the past few seasons bear testimony to that fact. New England is good. The Saints made the NFC championship game. Tampa Bay even won a Super Bowl. There is a real playoff that decides the winner on the field and there is no shifty underground trying to pay players that you are not supposed to pay. Everyone knows they get paid and that they get paid a whole lot. I think the whole above board nature of it creates a stunningly good brand of football. The cap system has evened the playing field and even though people lamented that this would destroy the dynasties that draw people to the game it has not. In fact, it has created one of the best dynasties that I can recall in the NFL ever. To me, the NFL is in its prime. College football is past its prime and the patchwork BCS is all the evidence I need of that. It was much more interesting to me as a kid. College football would do better to move to a playoff or move back to the days of major bowls with conference tie-ins. Just quit pretending you are crowning a legitimate national champion. I know it looks nice on bumper stickers and hats but the NCAA doesn't recognize it. I wish more fans would do the same.
College ball ... no thanks. I will support my non-BCS alma mater. I will even attend a game or two BECAUSE its my alma mater (after all, its supposed to be about education right?). For the rest of it, I'd rather catch the superior play and FAR superior modern-day competitive system of the NFL. I just wish the NFL would start a minor league system in the spring and start taking kids like MLB and the NBA do. I think it would do everyone a whole world of good including the big money universities AND the young kids trying to make it to the NFL.
P.S. My fantasy team finished 5th, which is about where I hovered in the standings all season ... yuck!
There is a neat RSS application that allows you to add a feed into your Facebook profile. Naturally, most of this stuff is severely dated. Now all I have to do is categorize it as "Personal and Family" and it will show up on my profile. I like Facebook so much more than MySpace.
In the near future I am going to write a criticism of the Tyranny of Perfectionism OR the Lifestyle Choices as Dogma crowd.
The short version of it is that we have chosen to put our kids in school for the remainder of the year. As it is, there are actually good reasons not to homeschool. If you scroll down a few posts you can see that this was likely a difficult decision for us. It was.
Nevertheless, we have made the right choice for our family.
To some we are failures. For those who hold that opinion, in the immortal words of Johnny Bravo
The talk went really well. I was excited to hear the stories of other converts. Quite frankly I could do this every week. It is such a blessing to hear of people having gone through the same struggles that my wife and I went through and feeling the same highs and same lows. It was good to hear that everyone struggles through similar logical processes and fights against their conversion at the end. I think few people realize what converts give up. They often convert to Catholicism DESPITE their emotional call to remain Protestant. Trust me, if I had stayed where I wanted to it would have been miles easier but I would have been denying where Christ was leading me.
My notes were 1700 words which alone would have extended beyond my 12.5 minute time limit. I had to leave out large portions of it to hit my alloted time. Beyond the 1700 words I had typed up answers to questions I thought I might be asked. I was asked one question I expected. The question was:
How do you explain the priest scandal and did if affect you during your conversion? The answer to the second part was yes and to the first ... well ... read my conversion story over on the right. :) Something about the people in the pew next to me.
I will be sitting on a "Journey Home" panel at my church this week. I will give a 10 minute summary of my conversion story along with 5 others. Then we will open the floor for an hour for questions.
Thursday 7-9 pm
Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary 865 Hatchell Lane Denham Springs, Louisiana 70726
If you are interested stop by and check it out and don't ask me anything too hard. Its been a rough past week. :) Also if you come you may want to ask about our adult education classes. They really are fantastic.
Odds and ends
I have less excuses about posting this week.
We started homeschooling for the first time last week. It had ups and downs ... mostly ups.
My fantasy football draft was a disappointment despite the fact that I actually put effort into my cheatsheets this year. This is the first year I did not buy any magazines. I think I have figured those out by now. Anyway ... Here are my starters
QB - Drew Brees RB - Frank Gore RB - Willis McGahee WR - Larry Fitzgerald WR - Plaxico Burress WR - Laveranues Coles TE - Vernon Davis K - Josh Scobee DEF - Jacksonville
Keep in mind this was a 10 team draft. I realized late that my strategy works best in 12 team leagues. There are too many good players left on waivers for me to have worried about my late draft picks like I typically do. I figure the first rounds are almost expected these days. Most people come to drafts prepared and even if they let the computer draft they are not making rotten picks. I have won so many leagues with my late picks.
Seven people did not show up and the computer started drafting defenses and kickers in the 4th round so while I am not uber happy with my team I realize I have a shot because most people did not pick their players. Chicago defense and Robbie Gould went early in our draft. We will see. Some of my later picks show a bias towards Jacksonville and Baltimore because I expect improvement in their offenses. Those will be my favorite two non-Saints teams this season.
My nephew (as a pedestrian) was hit by a truck on Thursday this past week.
He broke his right collar bone, left forearm (both bones) and right leg (both bones). They performed surgeries on his arm and leg to set the bones. They still have to do another surgery on his leg to put a plate and a screw.
He is back at home right now in recovery. We offer a high "thanks be to God" that he is alive and well and I ask all within visibility of this blog to pray with our family for a speedy recovery.
We welcomed home our 4th child today and we are SO glad to be here ...
I won't go into the whole birth story yet (the full story is here) ... The short version is that my wife labored as best she could moving closer and closer to the hospital as things progressed. We entered the hospital at 6:30 pm. My wife was at 7-8 cm. He was born a little over 3 hours later.
Got a little friction from the doctor because he did not have a copy of our records and was concerned about the scar from the previous section.
Successful VBAC, 10 lbs 4 oz, 21.5 cm ...
All in all we had what we consider to be a complete success. I will post later some thoughts on the whole matter.
Pretty bad too ... I had 9 in a row and buried it through the nose on the last shot to leave the Big 4. Then I whiffed on the whole thing. Oh well. A most disappointing way to bowl a 258. Any other way I would be happy with that score ... just not that way. The way I see it Michael Jordan missed game winning shots so I am allowed a collosal failure here and there. :) Last time I had pressure on (bowling my first 700) I delivered BIG TIME.
I ended the league with a 202 average. I am pleased about that. Still, chunking that 300 is a big disappointment.
I have not had much time to practice so sadly I am figuring things out during league that I would figure out in practice if I was doing it regularly. I just dont have the time. For 15 years I have mainly shot the arrows. It makes life easy. Tonight I started with a 192 and a 195 because I couldn't get the line I was throwing to carry. I decided to make a minor adjustment and throw 2 boards to the right of where I normally throw. I have done this sparingly in the past. The goal was to get into the dry outside to get a little more angle coming into the pocket. Good move.
I seriously had a shot. I got outside a little too much on that last shot. One stinking board. That is why they say bowling is a game of inches. Next time, I need to take advantage ... and as well as I have bowled the last several weeks I am convinced that I am improving and there will be a next time.
Posting from London BTW ... I have had an interesting trip so far. I wish work was less interesting. I will feel better when the details are worked out. I finally understand what is meant by the phrase "the devil is in the details". All of the major hurdles seem cleared. Its these little nuisances that seem to be interrupting things.
Hopefully I will post later. I ran into an article that is worth sharing.
On a personal note -- tonight I bowled my first sanctioned 700 series. As noted in the title it was a 726.
The bad news -- It was week one ... I set a 242 average. I have never averaged 200 before over a whole league for any period even in a short summer league. In fact, I have only bowled five or so sanctioned 600 series in my life.
The nine strikes in a row straddling games 2 (3 in the 10th) and 3 (6 in a row) are also a record for me in league. I had a string of 6 in a row in all three games.
I had to pick a Top 5 for stories of the year ... at least as far as I was concerned.
5. Post-tsunami cleanup 4. Everything Iraq 3. Terri Schiavo 2. Death of JPII, Naming of Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI 1. Katrina and Rita
On Katrina and Rita ... in terms of major news stories I don't think any have had the impact on my life personally that these two had. Things are still far from normal but as time progresses the New New Orleans will take shape.
I also decided to do a quick timeline of this past year for us on the home front
Jan 19 - decided to sell old home, contracted to buy new home Mar 30 - moved out of our old home, move into apartment .. deal falls through on selling old home which subsequently causes the new home deal to fall through Jul 6 - Signed a contract on a second new house - "We are buying a new house" Jul 26th - closed on old home Nov 30 - closed on new home [see link above]
I have decided that it does little good for me to look back and complain about the many ills those events caused us. From our narrow perspective the first deal looked ideal: New neighborhood, larger homes, friends in the neighborhood AND it was within walking distance of a Regnum Christi school. At the time it seemed as if the hand of God was walking us into the perfect situation for raising our kids. Didn't happen. The second deal looked far less ideal: Far away from homeschooling parents, no Catholic school in the vicinity ... smaller than the first new house we intended to buy, but certainly nicer. It was close to work and at least we knew that if life forced us to use the public schools they were ranked "second in the state" ... whatever that means. It is what happened. So God has us here, in Livingston parish. We are starting to see the advantages. We are getting a vague idea of what God may have had in store for us and 10 minutes drive time to work regardless of traffic snarls elsewhere in town is NICE. It is time to really set up our domestic church. That is our plan right now. Focus on Christ and pray that the rest of this mess keeps falling into place.
OK, I said I was going to avoid posting on hurricanes but I have to post a family update:
My in-laws got back to Beaumont and are leaving again. They said it is a ghost town and that many of the trees have been defoliated. They have no idea how long they will be gone from their homes. Prayers appreciated.
Also, review these two pictures to get an idea of how bad Hurricane Rita damage was at ground zero.
Holly Beach before
Holly Beach after
So don't let anyone tell you that Rita was a nothin' storm. Just because it wasn't Katrina doesn't mean it wasn't an incredibly bad storm.
Bowled tonight ... no-tap again ... 255, 200, 257 for a 712.
I am stressing out about our home selling. I request prayer.
I am noticing that my time to blog is being eaten up by this home buying and home selling process, not to mention unexpected car repairs. I need something in life to tone down. Please?
Also, pray that Hurricane Dennis hits a freak cold front or something that totally knocks it out ... we don't need the storm and Lord knows the rest of the gulf coast can do without it.
First we decided on a smaller house but the monthly difference was not really that much so we sprung for this one which gives us several advantages. As we have learned any of the scores of contigencies can actually happen so we may not end up in this house, but we hope so.
Clearly this might explain why blogging has been light.
We close on our old house on July 26th. Lots to get done so I expect blogging to be light this month ... then I will breathe a huge sigh of relief knowing that this plan is less likely to be interrupted.
This is a "fresh" blogroll. It tends to list blogs most frequently updated at the top. It will also drop blogs not updated for a few days. Never fear though, if you post, it will show back up. If you are interested in how I did it see this post.
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Journey Home panel;)
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This is a "fresh" blogroll. It tends to list blogs most frequently updated at the top. It will also drop blogs not updated for a few days. Never fear though, if you post, it will show back up. If you are interested in how I did it see 
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